Head in the Clouds
by Solstice Muse
Summary: When an overworked Ron faints, Hermione waits at his bedside to take him home and force him to relax. Meanwhile Ron has some strange hallucinations about a young dragon. Written as a get well gift for my friend Scrib, who we all missed last week.


_A/N __This is a get well gift for scribhneoir from myself and lj user="hey_rupert". I can't post her illustration here but those you you who visit Live Journal will be able to see it embedded into the story over there on the LJ community Ronsexuals_

_We did this because Scrib had an accident just before Half Blood Prince came out and she couldn't see it, and moreso because she was due to come and stay with me but she was in the hospital and we all missed her. _

_May you faint into the arms of a man like Ron next time...and very VERY far away from any stairs!_

**Head in the Clouds**

_It must have been about four years old, the dragon, and it's bluish-greenish scales reminded him more of a fish that any dragon hide he'd ever seen. He was feeding it and stroking the top of its head, down the length of its neck, and then moving back to the glowing cheek again._

_It looked as if the creature was blushing but it wasn't, it was brewing a mini furnace inside its cheeks. He wasn't scared of being burnt, though, he knew…he just knew that the animal was like him._

_He was lonely and lost and the air felt uncomfortably damp. There was a fuzz around him, like his eyes were out of focus and he needed glasses, and the moisture in the air felt thick and warm and uncomfortably wet._

_It was swelling around his head and he tried to shake it away. The young dragon looked at him with jet black eyes, smoke snorting from his nostrils, and soon Ron forgot about the cloud around his head._

_Fogging his vision, weighing down his hair, filling his lungs…_

He was moving again.

Hermione threw a nervous glance towards Seamus and then turned back down to Ron's pale face. The healing spell was swirling around his head, doing it's job, but Ron was trying to shake it off.

"Ron? It's all right, mate, it's makin' ya feel better." Seamus spoke softly, for him, down into his strained face.

"Seamus is healing you," Hermione added her attempt to soothe him as she took his hand and squeezed, "don't pull that face. He won't blow you up."

She smiled nervously and Seamus pretended to be insulted. Ron gave up on his efforts to waft the healing mist away. She watched the magical cloud reform and settle, then continue sinking deeply into his poor head.

He hadn't been taking care of himself.

She had known it but there was only so much nagging and fussing she wanted to commit her time to when she had him back between missions. He'd work overtime, then train, then go flying at night in an attempt to wind down and finally return to the flat and listen to her fretting over her notes and stresses and everything that was unjust and needed crusading against before dragging her to the sofa or the bath or the bed.

When he woke in the mornings he would have a piece of toast and steal a slurp of her tea. At work he'd pick at the packed lunch Ginny had made for Harry. When a building collapsed in Solihul he jumped up from his desk, ran for the Apparition point and staggered to a stop half way.

He gripped a bannister, the nearest thing he could reach for, clung on and blinked his eyes in an attempt to regain focus. He couldn't shake the dizzy spell and closed his eyes to keep the walls from moving in ways walls shouldn't move. Then he fell like a tall tree on the side of a steep hill.

Harry had said he'd just dropped sideways down the stairs like a sack of potatoes.

Seamus was the Auror Healer on call and had fixed the breaks and cuts instantly. He'd cast a spell to right Ron's overtaxed and overtired brain and had been waiting for him to absorb it all ever since.

He was too skinny, his metabolism too fast, not to eat properly. He was too busy and stressed to listen to her anxieties on top of his own. He was too tired and worn down to still train and fly on top of a full day's work with the Aurors.

He did too much and didn't let it show because he enjoyed his job, loved to fly, and wanted to listen to her because he cared about the fact that she cared about things.

He put himself last.

He didn't know that, to the people he worked with, he was in the top flight of importance and had nothing to prove, no spurs to earn. He didn't know that if there was an evening when he just needed to tell her about his shitty day or the fact that he just wanted a cuddle and a long sleep she wouldn't feel neglected. He didn't know that it would mean the world to her to be able to take care of him for once.

_It was a gangly thing, much like he was, but it would grow into something quite majestic._

_He knew the dragon would eat from his cupped hand without biting him or breathing fire and burning his skin. He knew the ferocious instincts weren't dominating the creature yet. _

_The fog about his head was thicker now and he thought about fanning it away with his hand, but then he stopped himself. He shouldn't make any unusual movements and alarm the temporarily docile dragon. It was between hatchling and juvenile and that was an unpredictable time for any species._

_He looked at the dragon's feet, they were too big for its body. He smiled. They were both clumsy, big footed, awkward yet peaceful. The dragon ate from his hands and the humid cloud swirled around his head. _

_Charlie would know what it needed. There were people who knew things and people who tried their best. Ron was a trier._

_He'd have to leave the dragon to an expert soon but he was competent enough to stay with it for now. He could tend to it and keep it calm. _

_When the dragon was gone he'd get out from under that cloud._

The last of the healing spell was seeping into his skull. She stroked his hair and Seamus performed one last diagnostic spell before grinning at the coloured patterns that projected themselves against the white wall behind the bed.

"Once its all gone you should sit him up and get him to drink some water," he said before putting his wand away and smiling at her.

"Should I wait for him to wake up?" She asked, clutching his hand tightly.

"No, as soon as its gone. He needs fluids and once he's awake you can take him home and strap him into bed until he's fully recovered."

She flushed slightly and pretended she'd been given simple instructions without any…extra...

"Sorry, didn't mean t'embarrass yeh," Seamus said with a smirk, "but who else do you think he goes to with his rope burns?"

"It's not rope!" Hermione blurted.

Seamus waggled his eyebrows and left, cackling to himself.

She cringed and buried her burning face into his chest.

_The young dragon was getting uneasy, pulling away, then nudging back against his chest with its smouldering cheeks and snorting smoke from both nostrils._

_Ron didn't know whether he should make himself larger and more dominant or shrink down in a non threatening manner. The black eyes reflected his image back at himself and one final huff from the creature blew away the fading cloud from his head._

_He wondered if the dragon was a girl or a boy and slowly crouched. He peered beneath the animal and then looked up at her and she stared down at him._

"_You're a woman eh?" He smiled, nervously. "So you want me at your feet, subservient…I have a girl who likes that."_

_The female dragon moved forward to tower over him, nostrils flaring._

"_Not that she's into slavery or anything!" Ron babbled. "I mean…she likes it…when I'm…she likes…she…"_

_The dragon lowered her head and licked his face with a warm, dry tongue. Ron closed his eyes and tried not to pull a face of displeasure._

"She jus' likes it when I say big words like subservient," he sighed with a weak, croaky voice.

"Ron?"

"Hmmm?"

She was cradling his limp body in an upright position, his torso slumped against her chest and head lolling beneath her chin, as she struggled to wake him enough to get him to take some water.

"Lift your head for me."

His eyelids fluttered open and he looked from left to right before his whole body flinched and she almost dropped him off the side of the bed.

"Hold still!" She said in a panic.

"Dragon?" He exclaimed, at a loss to understand his surroundings.

"Ron, look at me, it's Hermione. You're in hospital."

He lifted his heavy head to look up at her and seemed to be a little foggy and slow.

"It's me," she smiled before lifting the full glass of cool liquid to his lips, "drink."

Ron gave a dry swallow and suddenly woke right up as his thirst became something of an urgency and he clamped his lips to the side of the glass and began gulping faster than he could keep up with.

"Whoa! Easy there, you don't want to drown do you?" She pulled the glass away and Ron forced his last mouthful down before gasping and leaning forward for more.

"Thirsty," Ron said as he reached up and grabbed for the glass with his hand.

Hermione pulled it out of reach and looked at him with her sternest expression.

"You can drink as much as you like but you'll take it easy, all right?"

Ron was already pulling the glass back towards his mouth with both hands and nodding as he tipped the last third into his mouth.

"Mum-hmmm," he agreed before swallowing it all down and then gasping for air again. "C'n I have s'more?"

She took the glass back and set it down on the side table, then reached for the water jug and began to pour, Her other arm was still occupied with supporting him in the sitting position.

Ron saw the jug and tried to sit up by himself so he could lean over and take the jug for himself.

"No! You will not drink from the jug!" Hermione said, strictly.

Ron almost fell out of bed and took her with him. She huffed and slid out from under him, then forced him down onto the bed and glared down at his mystified face.

"It was a woman," Ron said, pausing to blink and stare back up at her, "she liked me beneath her too."

Hermione frowned and then Ron licked his lips and turned his head towards the water jug.

"Hands behind my back, promise, I'll let you do it." He looked back up at her and pleaded, hopefully. "I'm still thirsty, Hermione."

She knew that if Seamus were to walk back in and see them like this he would lose his eyebrows to lunar exploration, they'd launch so far from their usual position.

"Subservient," Ron said with a small shrug.

"Why do you keep saying that?" She asked as she pulled him upright and moved pillows behind him to support him against the bed frame.

"I had a dream or something. A young dragon was with me and it was a girl so I was submissive for it because you like that don't you?"

Hermione tried not to smile.

"I'll use this against you, you know that, right?"

"Huh?" Ron frowned before clearing his parched throat and glancing towards the water jug.

Hermione picked up the refilled glass of water and sat on the edge of the bed.

"You aren't resting properly, eating properly, sleeping properly and I'm in charge of making sure you do all three. You just said you were going to be submissive for me so that means you do as your told, when I tell you, and no arguments."

She held up the glass before him and he licked his lips and leaned forward, keeping his eyes fixed onto hers.

"We'll see," he said before knocking back the water, greedily.

Hermione tipped the water forward even more so Ron had to gulp, noisily, to keep from spilling it.

"You'll have more than rope burns to complain to Seamus Finnegan about when I'm finished with you."

Ron began to choke on the water and Hermione grinned as she re-filled the glass.

"What's he been saying?"

"What have _you_ been saying?" Hermione cocked an eyebrow and moved the brim full glass to his lips.

"Nothing," Ron said before slurping some of the water from the top, "I can't heal myself left handed and you and your erotic scarves chafe like a bastard!"

She moved the glass away just as Ron was going to drink from it again, replacing it with her lips. She kissed him and he closed his eyes and grunted into her mouth. As he moved his hands up her arms she broke the kiss and looked at him sharply. He moved his arms back and gripped onto the end of the mattress.

"Sorry, carried away." He mumbled before leaning in to kiss her again.

"Not that, though it's always nice to know I can now get you just how I want you with just a look," she tormented him with her smile before lifting the glass back to his lips and tipping the contents into his mouth, "but the look was because you bloody scared me you swine!"

"I did?" Ron swallowed and squirmed as he tried to sit up properly.

"Yes you did," Hermione said as she pushed the lip of the glass to his mouth again and watched him drinking the water down with slow rhythmic bobs of his Adam's apple, "I don't like being summoned to hospital because you passed out and fell down a flight of stairs. I especially don't like it having been avoidable."

Ron was about to swallow and then apologise but she wouldn't stop the flow of the liquid past his glistening lips.

He made a gurgled grunt to convey that he'd say the right thing if she'd let him. She watched him forcing back the cool, clear liquid and smiled, kindly.

"As soon as you drink all this down I'm taking you home and you're doing exactly what I tell you to do until you've made a full recovery."

Ron finally polished off the water and took the glass from her hand to set it down. Then he cupped her mischievous looking face with both hands and gave her a wet kiss.

"Doctor's order's eh?" He grinned.

"Healer Finnegan's orders actually, and I'm going to obey them to the letter." Hermione said, primly. "Especially the part about strapping you to the bed with 'ropes'."

Ron's eyes bulged.

"Ropes?"

"Well you mocked my 'erotic scarves' and Seamus did talk to me about using ropes on you so I'll go to the extra effort to do this thing right."

Ron gulped.

Hermione pulled him out of bed and threw his clothes into his face.

"I'll give you something to faint about!"


End file.
